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Thursday, June 7, 2012

Do You Use LinkedIn, eHarmony or Last.fm? Change Your Passwords NOW!

It would be wise to take a moment to change the passwords to your LinkedIn, eHarmony and Last.fm accounts as soon as possible.

All three sites suffered a data breach this week, resulting in millions of user passwords being stolen and posted to underground hacker forums as the attackers sought help in cracking them.

6+ Million Passwords Lifted from LinkedIn

The series of break-ins started Wednesday morning with LinkedIn, who took to their blog and Twitter account to confirm the breach and advise that affected users would be notified via email to change their passwords.

Various media outlets reported that a Russian hacker had decrypted a portion of the stolen passwords and posted over 6 million SHA-1 hashes that they were unable to decode on forums dedicated to password cracking.

Around 1.5 Passwords Taken in eHarmony Breach

Adding to the drama, online dating website eHarmony posted on their blog Wednesday night, stating that they had also suffered a breach and would also be sending notices advising users to update their passwords.

Ars Technica reports that the unsalted MD5 hashes of 1.5 million eHarmony passwords were also uploaded to sites focused on cracking passwords. It is important to note that the attackers could have more passwords in their possession and only posted the ones they need help decrypting.

Last.fm Looking Into Password Leaks

On Thursday morning, Last.fm announced that they too were investigating a possible breach and urged users to change their passwords immediately as a precaution.

They have not disclosed how many passwords are believed to have been leaked and will be posting updates on their Twitter account and site forums.

Do You Use These Sites? Update Your Passwords NOW!

I you use LinkedIn, eHarmony or Last.fm, make sure you change your passwords immediately and use a unique password for every website.

If you use the same password on other websites outside of LinkedIn, eHarmony or Last.fm, it’s also strongly recommended that you change your passwords on those sites as well.

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